


A Memory.

by quigonejinn



Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You wanted to fix the moment of your father's pride in your mind, and instead, you saw your mother on her knees in the muck. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Memory.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [DW](http://quigonejinn.dreamwidth.org/173140.html#cutid1) on 2/20/2011.

You wake before dawn, and the future is a wall before you: mud, mixed with straw and sand, spread across thatch to keep out the cold. You dress, and you rub at your face and hands with a little water. 

...

Here is a memory: your father praised you for your bravery and touched you open the arm, just above your tattoos. You felt his hand despite the cold and exhaustion; he looked you in the eye, and he told he was proud of you. You were Esca, son of Cuneval, bearer of the Blue Shields of the Brigante, and he wanted you to hold the hill for him. 

As you went, you looked over your shoulder. You wanted to fix the moment of your father's pride in your mind, and instead, you saw your mother on her knees in the muck. Your father stood behind her, his hand resting upon the handle of his knife. Her throat was turned up to him, and he was hesitating, one hand touching her throat and the other hand on the hilt of his short sword. 

He was hesitating; distance made your vision unclear, and you turned your face. You were seventeen; it has been seven years. The sun had been a haze that day, hidden behind thin clouds, and you remember cresting the hill, sword and shield in hand. Your took a piece of earth between thumb and forefinger, and you swore, on the honor of your people and the body of your mother, that you would be dead by morning. 

...

You wake before dawn, and you dress. The slave barracks are beginning to wake around you. 

The first master who bought you took you as part of a lot. There were more to sell than you would have expected from the example set by your mother, and there were others, from other tribes, too. There was one woman, in particular. You did not know her name, as she had been from another sept, but you have seen her before. Her face had been familiar, and you see it again in passing, in the light of torches and in passing as she was led from the women's pens by a group of laughing soldiers. Two other women were being led away; one was weeping, and one was wailing for her husband and sons. 

The girl was heavy with child and had one hand underneath her stomach. She had pale hair and dirt on her face, and she walked, slowly, carefully. She said nothing, but her eyes met yours. She brought her other hand to the front and underneath her stomach, holding it. 

After the screaming, there were women and children and those of the wounded who recovered enough to be sold. A landowner newly come to his fields needed slaves and needed them cheaply, and you went as part of a lot of thirty men, a mix of Brigante captured in this campaign and, also, men who were already slaves being sold again. 

...

With your first master, you worked in the fields; the cold and wet and loneliness were killing you, until by some means, it was known that you had been raised as a hunter, that you knew a little about handling animals and tracking. After that, you ran with the dogs to flush the deer, and carried a spear and a shield at boar-hunts. The food was better, and it became quite normal and expected for you to carry a small knife: you wore your father's dagger on a bit of leather around your neck, and you used it to gut animals after the hunt had been concluded, to cut off pieces of meat for dogs that had done well. You even used it at table. 

It lasted for years, and it was not terrible. You learned Latin, caught the way of talking of other tribes, too, for the other three gamekeepers were all from different tribes conquered by the Romans. They taught you things that you had not known about the forest, for you were raised in the hills more than the trees, and you were only nineteen. You remember forests made of aspen leaves in fall and the speed with which you passed through them, the call of the stags in the rich lowlands and the weight of the hunting horn in your hands as you sounded the kill. 

It was -- you think back to that time with a strange feeling in your chest. 

Then, the first master died. His cousin, who had been living in Gaul and had set himself up as a prosperous grain merchant there, came to Britain to liquidate the estates. 

"So you're Esca," the cousin says. He was small and dark. He looked kind. "The other gamekeepers tell me that you were the one who saved my life yesterday on the hunt. There isn't much boar on my estates in Gaul, but you may find it interesting -- I hope you're not thinking of running away, because I may take you there with me." 

"What would I run away to? Roman scum like you killed my family." 

He struck you on the face, and you swung for him. Others held you down while you were beaten within an inch of your life, but either your new master remembered how you had saved his life or the other gamekeepers begged for your life, or both, and you were not killed.

You were sold to the gladiator school. A wooden sword was put in your hand, and they wanted to see if you could be trained to fight for pleasure. 

...

You last saw your mother kneeling in the mud, and the last time you saw your father was in the final line preparing to meet the Romans and their allied tribes. It was shoulder to shoulder, with less than a hundred left from five hundred, and you caught a glimpse of him far down the line. You knew him by his height and the trim on his blue shield. His guard of twelve had become two uncles and your cousin, who was barely twelve that year. At the mustering, he had barely your shoulder even though you were short for your age. 

You remember cresting the hill, sword and shield in hand, and swearing that you would be dead by morning: in battle, blow to the head by the butt of a spear sent you to your knees and then to blackness. 

You wake before dawn, and you rub at your face and hands with a little water. You dress in your gladiator tunic, and you shake your hands dry. There is a scrap of bronze hanging on the wall for way of a mirror, and you look yourself in the eye as your dry your hands. 

You would not kill for pleasure. 

...

You remember your mother; you remember your father. You remember your brothers, your cousins, and the screaming in the pens and the girl with the heavy belly going to her fate. You remember cresting the hill, sword and shield in hand, and swearing that you would be dead by morning.

The grate rises, and you step onto the sand with your short sword and small shield. The crowd roars, and the gladiator standing on the other side is wearing a black mask with two heads. You have seen him before, at the school. He is good; he takes pride and joy in his work, and you tighten your grip on the sword. You think of the dagger on a leather string, lying on a bench in the rooms behind the grate, as they would not let you take it into the arena with you, and you tell yourself this: at least you will be dead by morning.


End file.
